This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
An idea from the old thread: instead of testing students and separating them into different schools, each student should learn at their own rate in the same school, via a vast universal online curriculum.
Additionally, instead of one final exam, there should be many interspersed exams. To save proctoring resources, each student could have a random subset of their exams strictly proctored, unknown before exam day.
Students would graduate either at a certain age or after passing certain lessons, whichever comes first. Then they could optionally keep taking lessons and exams (at home online, or by paying to enroll in an adult school). Enough progress in a specific subject would award them a Master’s degree.
Problems? I think it would still be unfair, stressful, unreliable, etc., but better than the current system. Students who don’t have access to coaches would be less disadvantaged, because the online curriculum would cover practically every subject and be designed by the best teachers. With many exams, students may be less stressed and hampered by exam-day sickness, since one bad exam grade is negligible. With many exams and random proctoring, cheating would be harder, even if proctoring was less strict to compensate for frequency.
I went to Catholic schools.
Everyone went to the same campus. Discipline was uniformly strict- although we didn't have corporal punishment at all after the sex abuse crisis and it was definitely on the way out beforehand, suspension was a real possibility that happened regularly and there was the occasional expulsion. Flip side of that, no hallpasses, and in high school you didn't even need to ask permission to go to the bathroom, because if you abused the privilege you got in trouble. There were honors and regulars classes for every core class except religious ed, with real tracking for math in the secondary grades. Starting around 10th grade finals declined in importance, I think when I graduated there was one final exam(Latin) and that's it, we had essays and projects and whatnot for everything else. It was by no means unheard of for a particular student to be on, say, the honors English/basics math track, or vice versa. Very importantly, your parents could not get you moved to a more rigorous/prestigious class, although sometimes teachers could, and you could transfer credits in from community college if you wanted. Electives existed and were unsegregated, although a few of them had pre-reqs which kept it to kids in honors in related classes. It's probably as close to what you describe as could reasonably exist.
I went to a public school, and my experience sounds similar.
We had a separate elementary and middle/high school.
Discipline existed, including suspension and expulsion, but wasn't especially strict. Students acted out, but I never saw anything compared to horror stories I hear today.
We had honors classes, and math branched into calculus, statistics, and discrete.
Most classes had finals, but they were a small fraction of the overall grade. Some finals were multi-week projects.
I think it was OK, but I wish there was less busywork, higher-level advanced classes, and more computer classes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link